The field of the invention relates generally to industrial remote control systems, and more specifically to industrial remote control systems including user manipulated control input devices communicating with a vehicle mounted base station.
Mobile industrial machinery, including but not limited to industrial vehicles such as trucks, are known including auxiliary components and machinery systems that can be remotely controlled by persons using a variety of control input devices. Such auxiliary components and machinery systems are provided for purposes other than propulsion of the vehicle (or the mobile machine), and typically involve heavy duty actuators to lift or move objects and loads that are generally beyond the capability of human persons to perform. Such mobile machine and industrial trucks include, for example only, concrete pump trucks, concrete boom pumps, concrete mixer trucks, load/haul/dump trucks, skid steer track loaders, truck mounted cranes, tow trucks and auto recovery vehicles, utility trucks, vacuum trucks, service cranes, mixer trucks, material handling equipment, industrial marine vehicles, locomotives, fork lifts, forestry equipment, mining trucks, excavators, track type machines, tunnel boring equipment, chippers and augers, rotator trucks and off road machines.
The control input devices may be hand held or otherwise provided at locations remote from the components and machinery that are integrated into the vehicle or mobile machine. The control input devices communicate with a vehicle mounted base station including one or more electronic control units that accept user inputs via the control input devices, and in response actuates the desired components and machinery according to the inputs. Such remote control systems for industrial vehicles tend to be customized for each application, and significant engineering and manufacturing effort is required to customize the controls interfaces to accommodate each application. For example, known industrial remote control systems of this type tend to involve unique, custom developed low level software and unique, custom engineered cable harnesses for each input device desired, which may vary widely for different industrial applications. While such customized controls have conventionally been provided, they have not completely met the needs of the marketplace and improvements are desired.